Mobile and cross-border commerce drives revenue growth for Alibaba
Chinese online retail giant has posted a 32 per cent growth year-on-year in revenue for its Q4 results, bolstered by a significant rise in mobile revenues.
Alibaba's mobile revenue in the quarter was RMB18,746m ($2,894m), an increase of 192 per cent year-on-year, which the business said was driven by higher mobile GMV and increased monetisation of mobile transactions and usage across its marketplace.
Maggie Wu, chief financial officer of Alibaba Group, commented: “We achieved impressive revenue growth as we are increasingly monetizing the user activity on our marketplaces, particularly on mobile devices. In this quarter, revenue grew 32 per cent year-over-year and China retail marketplace revenue grew 35 per cent year-over-year.”
Over the year, users of its marketplaces Tmall and Taobao grew 23 per cent and Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang said he expects further growth as the business eyes rural expansion.
“We remain focused on our top strategic priorities, including global imports, rural expansion, increasing our footprint in first-tier Chinese cities and building a world-class cloud computing business,” said Zhang.
Alibaba-created online shopping event Singles' Day was also heralded as a success for the business. The November 11 event attracted over 115 million shoppers, 95 million of which bought via mobile. Over $14m was settled via its online payment service Alipay on Singles' Day, according to Alibaba.
In terms of its international business, it said the strategy is focused on cross-border commerce that allows international brands and retailers to sell online to Chinese consumers.
On Singles' Day, 30 million active buyers purchased products from over 16,000 international brands, according to the report. Tmall Global, the marketplace channel dedicated to global imports, witnessed 179 per cent year-over-year growth in the December quarter, with more than 200 international brands, including Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Lululemon and Clarisonic, opening stores on Tmall.